Root for the Bruins; Every other mascot must lose.
— Joe Bruin
Welcome to Bruin Source! This our inaugural article for our website and what better way than to launch it with our weekly feature – Bruin Rooting Guide. We’ve posted 4 podcast episodes over the past month previewing the 2019 UCLA football season, but today is the official launch of our site. We thought it would be appropriate to launch it on the first game-day of the season.
As a way to help our fellow Bruins, we will be releasing a weekly guide of which other teams to root for outside of Westwood that enhance the Bruins resume. As only four teams can be selected to the CFP, this leads to a reality where every game counts and each team UCLA plays, we will look to see what is the best interest of rooting for them (except USC of course) to help our strength of schedule (SoS). I like to call this concept – residual wins. Take last year for example – if UCLA had beaten Cincinnati, Fresno State and Oklahoma, wins against three 10+ win teams would’ve created the narrative of a young UCLA team, showing a promising future, and we might’ve been ranked in the top 25 and not the 4-8 program from Lincoln. This offseason, we have used these 3 teams as a talking point of why we shouldn’t schedule tough opponents before a 9-game conference slate. Furthermore, judging last year’s team purely off its record wouldn’t give you a fair assessment of things to come.
On the eve of kickoff, I thought it would be fun to play a game of entertaining hypotheticals before the Ws and Ls roll in.
Let’s take a look at UCLA’s opponents for the 12-game regular season schedule:
- Game 1 – Cincinnati
- Game 2 – San Diego State
- Game 3 – Oklahoma
- Game 4 – Washington State
- Game 5 – Arizona
- Game 6 – Oregon State
- Game 7 – Stanford
- Game 8 – Arizona State
- Game 9 – Colorado
- Game 10 – Utah
- Game 11 – USC
- Game 12 – Cal
Again, this isn’t another article where we’re giving our predictions. This is a ROOTING fan guide. In this case, the first thing we can make clear is that we all are rooting for UCLA to have a perfect season, DTR or Kelley to win the Heisman trophy, win the national championship, and go on to be one of the greatest teams in the history of college football while whooping team’s butt by an average of 42 points. I’m not saying it will happen, but maybe I am. We will save that for our 2020 predictions. In this hypothetical, every team has lost to us, so I won’t be repeating that fact below.
Out of Conference
Let’s begin with the out of conference schedule. As these are teams we play before the Pac-12 opponents, they are the easiest teams to root for. Each team does share a common opponent with another Pac-12 team we play, but it doesn’t necessarily affect our rooting interest. For example – If UCF beats Stanford, we still want Cincinnati to beat UCF to win the AAC. Beating a conference champion helps our SoS vastly more than beating a Stanford who lost to a conference champion. However, we do want UCF to win the rest of their games outside of Cincinnati in the event that they beat Stanford in Week 1.
Cincinnati (projection: not ranked)
Cincinnati is a fascinating program. They’re located in the football rich state of Ohio, play in a group of 5 conference in the AAC and seem to be a launching pad for a lot of terrific coaches over the past 15 years. We also recently just hired their basketball coach who we’re all excited for. Bearcat fans have more reason not to root for us than we do for them. More importantly, if they beat Ohio State in week 2, maybe it’ll calm the hype for SoCal Buckeye commits we are continuing to recruit. Best-case scenario for UCLA: Cincinnati wins the AAC, finishes 12-1, top 12 in the CFP poll with signature wins over Ohio State and 10-2 UCF.
Rooting for:
- AAC Champ 12-1 Cincinnati
- 10-2 UCF (losses to Cincinnati, Stanford)
San Diego State (not ranked)
San Diego State is actually very comparable to Cincinnati. Located in a football rich state of California, play in the MWC and seem to be launching pads for great defensive coordinators. They’re in the region, but we haven’t really battled with them for recruits with the exception of freshman Jahmon McClendon, but it wasn’t really a fight once we offered. The Aztecs are probably the one school in SoCal with red, which we can root for. Best-case scenario for UCLA: San Diego State wins the MWC, finishes 12-1, top 18 in the CFP poll with signature wins over ranked BYU (ranked with wins over USC and Utah) and Fresno State (win over USC).
Rooting for:
- MWC Champ 12-1 SDSU
- 11-1 BYU (loss to 3-9 Washington)
- 11-1 Fresno State (loss to SDSU)
Oklahoma (ranked Top 5)
Oklahoma is Oklahoma. Upset Oklahoma and the Sooners winning out to make the CFP is probably the most realistic scenario of any mentioned through all the fiction I’m typing here. Still, we have to root for them win the Big 12 for a 3rd consecutive year. Best-case scenario for UCLA: Oklahoma wins the Big 12 beating Texas Tech in the championship game.
Rooting for:
- Big 12 Champ 12-1 Oklahoma
- 10-3 Texas Tech (losses to Oklahoma twice and Arizona)
Pac-12 Schedule
The Pac-12 North is one of the best divisions in the nation and yet still probably one of the least respected, due to parity, and teams eliminating each other on their way to a conference championship. In contrast, the Pac -12 South is probably one of the least respected divisions and justified after the poor showing last year for every school not named Utah. While we have reasons to dislike every one of these teams, I will try to use logic to which teams we want and which ones we could care less for (except USC of course).
Washington State (ranked Top 20)
The Cougars won the biggest bowl game last season for the Pac-12 team after low expectations from the media pundits in the preseason. This season, given we play them early on and they are a road game, here is the Best-case scenario for UCLA: we want Wazzu to be ranked and undefeated when we play them, but lose all of it’s Pac-12 games except for the rivalry with Washington (which I will get into later). We also want them to beat Houston and Houston to win the rest of its AAC games except for Cincinnati and UCF.
Rooting for:
- 4-8 Washington State
- 9-4 Houston (losses to Cincinnati twice, UCF and Wazzu)
Arizona (not ranked)
Arizona has already lost to Hawaii and with that, it’s already hurt their chances of making a bowl in this scenario. With Arizona being a Pac-12 South team, here is the Best-case scenario for UCLA: Arizona finish 5-7. Still, we want them to beat the Red Raiders who ends up being the 2nd best team in the Big 12 (you may be noticing the pattern here).
Rooting for:
- 6-6 Arizona
- 10-3 Texas Tech (losses to Oklahoma twice and Arizona)
Oregon State (maybe ranked)
I have a soft spot for Oregon State, so I found a way for them to make it to a bowl in my dream season. Best-case scenario for UCLA: Making a bowl game with wins over Oklahoma State (3rd best team in Big 12) and conference wins over Stanford, ASU and Wazzu. I have them beating Stanford as they would go into our game undefeated 4-0 and potentially ranked.
Rooting for:
- 6-6 Oregon State
- 10-2 Oklahoma State (losses to Oklahoma and Texas Tech)
Stanford (maybe ranked)
Not many reasons to root for Stanford for a Bruins, but given they are top 25 in the preseason AP poll, we do want to keep them in the conversation for the sake of one of the better teams we beat. Best-case scenario for UCLA: 4-2 with only losses to the Oregon schools but big wins over Northwestern and UCF. Finishing the year 8-4, there other two losses come to UCLA and Cal. Then, they would finish the year strong with a big win over a 10-2 Notre Dame.
Rooting for:
- 8-4 Stanford
- 10-2 UCF (losses to Cincinnati, Stanford)
- 11-2 Northwestern (B1G Champ – losses to Stanford and MSU)
- 10-2 Notre Dame (losses to Stanford and USC)
Arizona State (not ranked)
I put the Sun Devils above the Wildcats given we don’t have a basketball rivalry with them, but you could have either team here – bowl team as 6-6. Best-case scenario for UCLA: ASU goes 6-6 with wins over ranked Michigan State, Wazzu, USC and Arizona.
Rooting for:
- 6-6 ASU
- 11-2 Michigan State (loss to Arizona State and Northwestern in B1G Championship)
Colorado (ranked Top 25)
Colorado is an interesting one and we want their season to be similar to last year – great start and fall off, but actually make a bowl game this year. Best-case scenario for UCLA: Colorado beats a ranked Nebraska team in week 2, only has one loss to Oregon by the time they play us and we beat a 6-1 ranked Colorado team late in the season. After playing us, Colorado is one of the teams we actually want to nearly lost out for the rest of the season with their 7th win against the Huskies. Also we want Nebraska to finish 2nd in the B1G West division behind Northwestern.
Rooting for:
- 7-5 Colorado
- 10-2 Nebraska (losses to Northwestern and Colorado)
Utah (Ranked Top 25)
Utah are the heavy favorites in the South and also gaining traction as a dark-horse contender to make the playoffs. For that, the Best-case scenario for UCLA: Utah heads into our game 7-2 ranked with their only losses to USC and BYU. Following their loss to UCLA, Utah is to lose two more games to finish 2nd in the South to the Bruins.
Rooting for:
- 8-4 Colorado
- 11-1 BYU (loss to 3-9 Washington)
USC (Not ranked)
This one was obviously the most fun to tweak. We could’ve easily have them go 0-12 and that would’ve been an ok scenario for Westwood as Troy continues to burn. I was forgiving here and had a different path for them. Best-case scenario for UCLA: Trojans lose early on which is enough to axe Clay mid-season, a small turnaround with the interim coach (Clancy?) and then UCLA crushes their bowl dreams before they look seek out Urban Meyer to save their rotting program. However, in order to make this happen, I have them winning against Utah and Notre Dame while losing to BYU and Fresno State early on.
Rooting for:
- 5-7 USC
- 11-1 Fresno State (loss to SDSU)
- 11-1 BYU (loss to 3-9 Washington)
- 10-2 Notre Dame (losses to Stanford and USC)
California (Ranked Top 7)
Cal is our older less cool brother which has been struggling with us recently surpassing them in national and world academic rankings. While we consider them an athletic rival, it still pales compared to USC and probably even Stanford now. Given we have Cal as our last game, I actually have a scenario most wouldn’t think of. Best-case scenario for UCLA: root for them to head into our matchup with only one loss to Oregon which keeps them out of the conference championship game. This would give us a marquee matchup on Thanksgiving weekend where we usually are overshadowed by bigger national rivalries and a huge win to finish off the season.
Rooting for:
- 10-2 Cal
- 12-1 SEC Champ Ole Miss (loss to Cal)
Oregon/Washington + Championship Game
There are two Pac-12 North teams we miss out on this year yet remain our recruiting foes. Believe it or not, I made this scenario before the Peterson/Yankoff debacle, so it didn’t have any influence on my decision here. As Bruin fans, Best-case scenario for UCLA: to root for Oregon to win the Pac-12 North and play them in the Championship game. The losses have to go somewhere in the conference, so Washington will be the team to take them. I have Washington going 3-9 in our dream scenario where they lose every single Pac-12 game, completely flaming out. The logic here is that Washington actually recruits the same athlete we do more so than Oregon, so we would benefit from them losing instead of Oregon. Oregon winning the North over California also gives us another top 5-ranked win for our quest to a national championship. So if that gives you more fuel to not like the Huskies over the next two years we miss them, here it is.
Rooting for:
- 11-2 Oregon (Top 5 Ranked)
- 3-9 Washington
Summary
In this dream scenario, we want the following conference teams to go undefeated until play them – Washington State, Oregon State. Following these matchups, UCLA play 4-2 Stanford, 4-3 ASU and 6-1 Colorado. Then, UCLA beats Utah winning the South in mid-November, ending USC’s hope for a bowl game and closing the regular season with a big win over top-7 Cal. Finally, they would go onto to beat top-5 Oregon in Santa Clara, rematch with Oklahoma in the in the CFP and go onto smash Clemson or Alabama for the National Championship. See that wasn’t too hard of a scenario to concoct and will never happen in 2019. The crux of the rooting manual is pretty simple – our opponents should win before playing us, lose to us, then win again after playing us (except USC of course). Next week, we will post an update-rooting guide for week 2. Stay tuned!
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